Down down deeper and down! #215800

I loved Status Quo but I don’t think I very often thought about the words I was singing along to.  Often we don’t, especially if it’s an upbeat tune … we’re more likely to listen and remember words to love songs, or sad songs as we’re drawn to them to help find meaning in our own worlds.  When we’re happy and upbeat we tend not to look inside, or even outside, for meaning but just accept the feelings of fun, peace, happiness – however you like to feel.

This last week, at the start of the 215800 challenge, I began to have old issues come up to the surface – was this the yoga, the meditation or was it just a repeat pattern?  A seven year old pattern I thought I’d dealt with and put to bed to be precise.  Or was this the time to go even deeper?

None of the changes and doors which I’ve shut this year have been about my family life.  To date they’ve addressed – career, self belief, finances, training, knowledge, health, friends and trust – all needing a depth charger.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that family would be added into the mix at some point.

After 4 days of handling the first issue, insult was added to injury – or perhaps more likely, because I didn’t handle the first blip well, I was given an even bigger issue on top of the first in the same context.   It was only when this happened that I began to realise that it wasn’t a repeat pattern, it was a depth charged door shutting exercise.

Going Down

How did it go so wrong?  After all, I’m an experienced and able therapist and tend to my own needs on a very regular basis.  I’m also a human being with human failings, human needs and human learnings.  I say this often in my blogs.  Anyone who believes they are above and beyond the realms of being tested or willing to work on themselves and able to go deeper will stop evolving and learning.

I found myself angry, very angry.  I thought I was being dis-respected, controlled, belittled, judged and excluded.  That’s quite a list!  I was in conflict with myself too.  I knew I knew better than to react and after doing some work around this, found that I was responding calmly and rationally.  I was actually very proud of how I was handling the situation.

That was until the second one came along and really took the wind out of my sails!  Ok, I thought, this is now a bit bigger and requires a different approach.  I reached out to a friend for some help and asked what I was missing.  I knew it was me that needed to change my approach, but what I couldn’t see was the lesson and without the lesson, I couldn’t change.  Is that just me, or do others find that the lesson has to be learned first?

Getting Deeper

I started to ask myself ‘What’s the worst that could happen’? and then ‘What’s the best that could happen’?  When you truly can’t answer the first question, you know you’ve got the result you need, or you haven’t really got a problem!

I began with, ‘I’ll be treated like this for the rest of my life, or at least for the next 4 years’.  When I realised we’d already made it through 7 years, 4 years was quite easy!

I then asked if that was actually true.  Had it been 7 years of this, or just specific times in the 7 years?  Was it really so awful?  Was I making some of it up? Was I perpetuating my myth?

That meant I could then start to concentrate on how I could make a difference to helping the best to come to fruition.

Did it really matter what I thought about this person’s attitude?   Could I create more flexibility?  Could I look at this as their reaction to something and not take it personally?  How could I disengage and let go while continuing to care and be available?  How easy would it be for me to feel at peace and for what reason was I not letting it happen?

Lifting, Lifting

I made the choice to disengage and be at peace within myself.  To test I’d made the right choice, I was presented with a phone call yesterday with a friend who isn’t into self development and there’s always a good chance that my way is not his!

It sure wasn’t and as I found myself listening to his solutions to my problem – fight fight fight.  I could feel myself shaking my head, my stomach was giving little cramping signs, and I was silently saying ‘No, no.  That doesn’t fit with me and my way’.  After then being criticised for being a therapist and not handling my problems, I knew for sure that the chosen solution for my peace was absolutely the right one.  I smiled and said thank you.  I reminded myself that as a mediator I had just been given yet another wonderful lesson to use and practice.

All conflict is internal.  Whether we are facing world, community, work, school, or relationship conflict – we must first look at the conflict we have within.  When we are able to find what we really want instead of conflict, we are then able to work towards that.

I’m blessed to be able to mediate with my own inner conflicts, this one took very little time once I realised what I was dealing with.  Bang, another door is shut!

What are you listening to and believing?

Written two years ago, I found this post today.  I consider myself lucky to still have kids young enough to enjoy the Disney/Pixar etc films because it gives me an excuse to settle down and get the ‘other’ message which is so often running through them.

If you haven’t seen Horton hears a Who, it’s well worth taking the time to see it – whatever age you are! Horton questions the very meaning of existence – what if we are just a speck. What if there is something much bigger than us which makes a difference to our world. Horton is the big thing and he goes out of his way to save the speck world from disaster – coming up against all sorts of dangers and evils on his way.

My daughter asked me which bit I liked best and I could instantly identify two key bits

– when he crosses a rickety rope bridge and has to adopt two new strategies – one fill himself with air (it nearly worked but he ran out of breath) and then the second – he kept looking up and out because to look down all he could see was inevitable disaster. When he reaches the other side in one piece he does a dance because he’s feeling so happy – and then he wonders to himself if it’s because he now has a purpose.

– when he steadfastly sticks to his truth even against the onslaught of the whole jungle. As always is the case in these films, the ending is perfect – all the other animals suddenly heard what he heard and he was free. The really nice touch was that he held no grudge against the main perpetrator of his near downfall and understood that she was only doing the best she could with what she believed to be true.

Horton taught much of what I teach – how to believe in yourself, finding those who do believe in you, to have a purpose, to question your reality, and lastly you are never too big or too small to learn how to do something new even if it seems like climbing Everest just now.